Thanks to a mounting interest in climate change and severe weather phenomena, meteorology courses are increasingly popular among today's students – particularly in general education versions of the course, where rapid advances in visualization tools and technologies like GIS have greatly expanded the teacher's toolkit.
The Atmosphere: An Introduction to Meteorology remains the standard introduction in its field, reinforcing basic concepts with everyday, easy-to-grasp examples. This revision retains the hallmarks professors have come to expect from Tarbuck and Lutgens: a friendly, largely non-technical narrative, timely coverage of recent atmospheric events, and carefully crafted artwork by leading science illustrator Dennis Tasa. The Twelfth Edition maintains a student-friendly approach while evolving to address various course challenges and trends. Current digital visualization and assessment tools are now available on MyMeteorologyLab, a new resource that both encourages student self-study and enables instructors to manage their courses online, with customizable assessments for students.
Each chapter in this revision is organized by a new active learning path to help guide and engage non-science majors. A greater focus on popular and increasingly important Severe & Hazardous Weather applications, new critical visual analysis Eye on the Atmosphere features, as well as new discussions of the real-world career opportunities of meteorology with Professional Profile essays, make the science both relevant and exciting.
1 Introduction to the Atmosphere
2 Heating Earth’s Surface and Atmosphere
3 Temperature
4 Moisture and Atmospheric Stability
5 Forms of Condensation and Precipitation
6 Air Pressure and Winds
7 Circulation of the Atmosphere
8 Air Masses
9 Weather Patterns
10 Thunderstorms and Tornadoes
11 Hurricanes
12 Weather Analysis and Forecasting
13 Air Pollution
14 The Changing Climate
15 World Climates
16 Optical Phenomena of the Atmosphere
Appendix A Metric Units
Appendix B Explanation and Decoding of the Daily Weather Map
Appendix C Relative Humidity and Dew- Point Tables
Appendix D Laws Relating to Gases
Appendix E Newton's Laws in Motion
Appendix F Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale
Appendix G Climate Data
Glossary
Index